knife against toast scraped against her nerves. “That was the deal.”
Not the way Kelsey remembered. She shook her head. “I’d be a lunatic to go home with a strange man in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not a stranger, Kelsey. You know me, and you have my assurance. You are perfectly safe with me and Mariah.” He wiped a bit of ketchup from Mariah’s chin. “Right, peanut?”
Mouth full of hamburger, Mariah batted her long-lashed eyes and bobbed her head at Kelsey in reassurance.
The little girl was such a sweetheart. Kelsey patted her hand and winked.
Though she’d been away from Dallas since her marriage four years ago, she still kept up with the local news. Ryan made the business news quite often and was known as a straight arrow who didn’t party, much to the dismay of Dallas society. And he had a child, for goodness sake.
“But my family is expecting me.” Sort of.
“Call them.”
“At this time of night?”
He gestured with his fork. “Either way, you’ll wake them.”
The man had an answer for every argument. “Now I understand how you became successful at such an early age.”
He grinned. Her stomach dipped so that she almost backed out of the entire deal.
But in the end, her desperate need for a job and a place to live, along with Ryan’s quiet insistence, won out and she agreed to go straight to his home. As a last-ditch effort at common sense, she’d phoned her father to let him know her where-abouts. He’d been none too happy about the late call, so she’d been brief, promising to drop by as soon as she was settled in her new job. Jim Slater had mumbled, “Fine,” and hung up. It was no more than Kelsey had expected. Relations had been strained since her father remarried so soon after her mother’s death.
Still, she felt strange following Ryan Storm around the airport, through the terminal and into the waiting limo.
The sensation didn’t improve upon arriving at his upscale, two-story town house in east Dallas.
Ryan, on the other hand, behaved as though he brought strange women home all the time. The thought gave Kelsey pause. Maybe he did. Maybe he was just ultra sneaky about it.
With Mariah draped across his shoulder asleep, he nudged his chin toward the stairs. “Second door on the right.”
Kelsey went ahead of him, flipped on the light and stripped the covers back on the canopy bed in preparation for the slumbering child. Ryan smiled his thanks and slid his small, limp load between the pink princess sheets.
“Shall I undress her?” Kelsey asked but didn’t wait for an answer. She reached for the child’s shoes while Ryan stripped away her coat.
“Good enough for tonight,” he said quietly. “Let her sleep.”
In the hush, she watched him tuck the cover beneath the sleeping beauty before placing a kiss on her forehead. Mariah squirmed, mumbled and then flopped over, burrowing deeper into the soft, inviting bed.
Tenderness crept into Ryan’s exhausted face. He stood beside the bed, looking down at his child for several long, sweet seconds. Emotion fluttered beneath Kelsey’s ribcage as she wondered about the man who was never home but who appeared to adore his child. Was he simply unaware of how much his child needed him? Or was he, like Mark, more concerned with success than with his family?
She also wondered about Mariah’s mother. What kind of tragedy had taken her at such a young age? What kind of woman was she that a man like Ryan Storm had married her? Did he still love her? How well had Mariah dealt with her mother’s loss?
Straightening, Ryan snapped off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into semidarkness. The resulting atmosphere was softly intimate, too much so. With a tilt of his head Ryan motioned toward the door. They brushed arms in the doorway and Ryan stepped back, letting her pass first. The air between them trembled with the same something she’d felt in the airport when their hands had touched.
“This way,” he murmured, gesturing to the left. “Your room will be this one next to Mariah’s if it suits.”
“I’m sure it will.” Right now, she just wanted someplace to lie down and put her feet up. And a shower. Oh, a shower would be heaven.
“I’ll bring your bags up in a minute.”
“I can get them.”
As if she’d threatened to burn the house down, Ryan spun around, jaw tight, eyes blazing. His mood had gone from tender to angry.
“You will not carry bags upstairs. You will not even carry grocery bags from the car to the house. Nor will you lift anything heavy while in my employ. Ever. Understand?”
Kelsey took one step back, surprised at the intensity of the remark. Was this guy moody or what?
“I’d be pretty stupid not to,” she snapped. “Although I see no need for you to be cranky about it.”
Ryan said nothing else, but his odd mood quivered in the air. Pushing a door open, he motioned her inside. Still miffed by his sharp comments, she brushed past him, but the move was too close for comfort. As in the airport, she caught the scent of expensive male cologne, glanced the surprisingly muscled arm stretched flat across the raise-paneled door. He still hadn’t shaved and his shirt—unbuttoned at the collar, his tie long ago stuffed into a pocket—was coming untucked. The result was bedroom sexy and deliciously rumpled.
Darn. There she went again.
Living under the same roof with a man who caused her mind to think such things might not be such a smart move. But it was done. At least for thirty days.
“It’s lovely,” she said when they entered the bedroom. A small sitting area, complete with desk, chair and television opened into a bed and bath. Sleek, elegant and modern with mint-green walls and cream trim, it was generically right for a guest or an employee of status.
The room was as beautiful as any she’d ever seen, but Kelsey felt oddly disappointed. A lump of loneliness rose in her throat. She and her baby had no home to call their own. All her dreams of decorating a nursery, buying the perfect furniture and giving her baby everything tormented her. The only thing she could give her baby now was love.
She must have looked as lost as she felt because Ryan touched her shoulder. She glanced up, saw the mood had changed again. “You’re dead on your feet. Go to bed.”
At the unexpected kindness, tears burned the back of her eyes. “I have to take a shower first.”
He remained there, staring at her for several seconds. “You’ll be okay here?”
She swallowed back the troublesome emotions and forced a cheeky grin. “Sure I will. You promised not to murder me.”
The corner of Ryan’s mouth quirked. “If you need anything tonight—”
“I won’t. Go to bed, Ryan. You’re as tired as I am.” And if he stood around any longer, she might cry and embarrass them both.
“But I’m not pregnant.” The comment was an accusation, as though he resented the fact that he’d hired a pregnant nanny.
“It isn’t a terminal disease,” she said.
As though she’d slapped him, Ryan recoiled. Behind the outline of dark beard, his natural tan drained away. For a moment he wrestled with something. His mouth opened and closed. His chest rose and fell. And then without another word, he whipped around and left the room.
But not before Kelsey saw the misery in his eyes.
“Kelsey, wake up.”
Kelsey awakened in a strange room, disoriented. She lay very still, moving only her eyes until they focused on Mariah perched cross-legged next to her, books spread about her in a circle. The cobwebs